This is how I think of my father...as the greatest man that ever lived. While these columns usually feature my mother, in honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd spotlight the OTHER hero in my life...and really, he is a hero.

My father and my mother immigrated to this country when I was four. As a young doctor with two little girls, fresh into America, he was the epitome of the American Dream. The whole world of opportunity should have lay in front of him.

However, nothing could be further from the truth a year later--for within that year, a series of "problems with his legs" led him to confined, for the rest of his life, to a wheelchair. Suddenly, job security, providing for his family, and his own sense of worth, were in jeapardy.

Lesser men would have broken down. And, indeed, the level of frustration my father underwent was excruciating. But in the fashion that I would come to admire much later, he refused to quit. Call it pride, or a deep sense of responsibility, but he refused to sink into a deep depression or be a burden to anyone. He relearned how to work his hands so he could hold forks, cups, button clothes, and do almost everything on his own. My mother, to her credit, was a saint and assisted him in everything he couldn't do--and that testiment of their loyalty to each other is part of the reason he succeeded.

And if that wasn't enough, he managed to run his own business, and raise my sister and myself to be the go-getters that we are. He was the sort of person who would make us learn and relearn something to perfection, to look for our own answers, and to always ask the tough questions.

Of course, within these years, he has had his very human moments, moments of frustration and sadness, but the extent of his accomplishments far outweigh such times. Indeed, the very things that we take for granted are the very things that are the markers of his greatness: Raising two citizen-of-the-world children, providing for a family, helping many people as a doctor.

I tell this story as one of many stories of wonderful fathers. I know you probably think your father is a hero too. Here's to the heroes.

Happy Father's Day!